THE VIKINGS
In the year 865, “a great heathen army” of Vikings landed on England’s east coast; an earlier raid on the monastery of Lindisfarne prompted a cleric of the times to say, “Never before has such terror appeared in Britain as we have now suffered from a pagan race.” By the 10th century, 3 of England’s 4 kingdoms were dominated by the Vikings, who gradually converted to Christianity and settled in the conquered territories
Dupuytren’s disease (DD) is an ancient affliction of unknown origin. It is defined by Dorland as shortening, thickening, and fibrosis of the palmar fascia producing a flexion deformity of a finger. Tradition has it that the disease originated with the Vikings, who spread it throughout Northern Europe and beyond as they traveled and intermarried. After being present for hundreds of years, DD was named in the 19th century after a famous French surgeon, who was not the first to describe it.
THE BARON GUILLAUME DUPUYTREN
Born in 1777, Guillaume Dupuytren was generally acknowledged as the greatest French surgeon of the 19th century; the English journal, The Lancet, named him in his lifetime “the most erudite and accomplished surgeon in Europe.” An ambitious man, he came from relatively humble origins and in his later years was created baron by Louis XVIII. He would now be called a draft dodger since his colleagues on the faculty of medicine in Paris arranged his deferment from the draft for Napoleon’s armies. In a fiercely competitive system, he rose in 20 years from a prosector of anatomy to chief surgeon of the Hôtel de Dieu in Paris
Val says everyone I meet now seems to have or know someone who has Dupuytren's. I watched a dvd last night with Bill Nighy starring and was amazed how badly both of his hands were affected . The film was called "About Time" and was seriously not worth watching unless you are a Bill Nighy fan or you want to look at his badly bent fingers. I thought you might be interested in all this and as Dupuytren was French I could get away with it as French interest. If you are a sufferer do not worry about being operated on as even with 26 stitches I have had little or no pain, the stitches are out tomorrow and a week later I see the surgeon to get the hand checked and learn about re education.
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